2. A Time of Opposition
The Romantic Period was a time of reaction against
the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age
of Enlightenment. It was also a movement that
opposed the scientific rationalization of nature. The
literature, music, and other arts of the time became
avenues for individual expression and speaking out.
In England, many literary thinkers wanted the
opportunity to establish a harmonious social
structure in the face of a rapidly changing society.
3. A little History
• The Industrial Revolution, began 1760
– New inventions meant mass production of goods could be
produced more efficiently
– Rural workers in cottage businesses and agriculture had
little choice but to seek work in factories, mills, and mines
– Women and children worked to help support the family
– Cities became centers of
“poverty and deprivation”
(Oosthoek)
– Building new physical and
commercial infrastructure
took priority over the individual
and nature
4. A Little History
• The American and French Revolutions, 1776 and 1789
– public meetings, to prevent an uprising (Norton)
– During the revolution, thousands people were killed in France, and fighting
extended to neighboring countries, there was widespread political and social
instability
– It was during the French Revolution that Romantics clarified their opposition
to the Enlightenment age
– Motivated by the desire to take political power from the land-owning
aristocracy, with the goal of liberty, fraternity, and equality for all men
– Loss of the American colonies caused a loss of prestige as well as economic
loss for England
– England's literary thinkers saw revolution as an opportunity to establish a
better social structure
– English conservatives feared the French Revolution ideals might spill over to
England, so repressive measures were initiated, including a ban on collective
bargaining and public meetings
William Blake and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were among those who saw the French
Revolution as fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecy.
5. A Little History
• The Napoleonic Wars
– Napoleon was initially considered a liberator, a symbol of change, and
several Romantic writers were in support of revolution
– Many saw the rise of Napoleon as a revolutionary figure and bringer of
a new freedom, others saw the violent excesses of the French
Revolution and Napoleonic War as signs of the apocalypse
– Romantics became less enthusiastic over the course of the Napoleonic
wars with Napoleon’s increasing cruelty and aggressive imperialism
– It wasn’t until after 1815, when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo,
that England started addressing social problems
As a result of revolutions and war, there is an undercurrent of tragedy, death and
despair in much of the later Romantic literature.
6. A Little history
• England’s laissez-faire(let it be) philosophy
– Encouraged people to follow their interests and limited state
involvement in economic activity
– Communal land was taken over by individuals, resulting in a
large number of displaced people
– The gap widened between the very wealthy and the very poor,
– Working conditions were terrible, with long hours, low wages,
and child labor exploitation in factories, mills, and mines
– Rapidly growing towns became polluted and overpopulated,
disease was rampant
Frustrated with the current political and social situation, Romantic
poets responded with poetry that was private, spontaneous and
lyrical – a shift from earlier formal and more public poetry.
7. New Themes
• Emotion and the individual experience
– A new emphasis on the subjective human experience, with
emotion, passion, and feeling, the scientific and objective
experience of the Enlightenment is rejected
– Romantic poetry is intimate, individual, and original, concerned
with truth of the heart – previous poetry was written for the
public
– Romantics saw the individual human experience as influenced
by their social setting and their time in history
“all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” -
William Wordsworth, from Preface to Lyrical Ballads
8. New Themes
• The awesomeness of nature
– By studying nature, men hoped to better understand the world and
mankind
– Writers of the Romantic Era had an increased interest in nature as a
positive influence in an uncertain world
– Many writers avoided the industrial scene of the cities, turning to
nature to escape the trials of an unstable economy and political
systems
– Nature was seen as powerful, awesome, and sometimes horrifying
– Experiencing nature was believed to inspire human creativity and free
the spirit
9. New Themes
• Creativity and imagination
– Romanticism rejected the Enlightenment period’s ideals of rules
of order
– It was a time of reaction and self-expression in all the arts
– Poetry in particular became a tool for self expression, often
using subjects that were not believable
– Imagination was believed to be the power behind creativity – a
human version of God’s power to create
– Imagination was needed to cope with (and escape from) the
political, economic and social problems during this time
10. Romantic Era Writers
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1934
– Smart and enthusiastic as a child
– He co-wrote Lyrical Ballads with Wordsworth, which many
say marked the literary beginning of the Romantic Period
– Coleridge had an alcohol and opium addiction, and his
poetry often expressed emotions associated with sin
– Using everyday language he often created strange or
dream-like imagery
– Unlike other writers of the Romantic era, he retained his
religion and most of his beliefs
– Coleridge was accused of plagiarism
– Best known for his long and narrative poetry…like “Rime of
the Ancient Mariner”
11. Rime of the Ancient Marinerlines 68-82
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'
'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A crop of Gustave Doré’s illustration for The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1876 edition)
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
12. Romantic Era Writers
• William Blake, 1757-1827
– Blake was a painter and engraver
– He used Christian symbols but didn’t ascribe to Christian theology
– He was a radical and non-conformist, his artwork and poetry reflected
his belief that “ideal forms should be constructed not from
observations of nature but from inner visions” (American Academy of
Poets)
– Believed poetry could be read and understood by common people
(American Academy of Poets)
– “I must create my own system or be enslaved by another man’s” He
rejected the ideals of the past and found his own way of doing things
Songs of Innocence and Experience are collections of Blake’s poetry that
contrasts the blossoming of the human spirit when it is allowed to be
free with it’s withering when constrained by rules.
13. A Poison Tree, from Songs of Experience
• I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
-William Blake
14. Romantic Era Writers
• Mary Shelley, 1797-1851
– Born to radical and influential
parents: Mary Wollstonecraft
who was a feminist writer, and
William Godwin who was an
atheist and former minister
– She married Percey Blysse
Shelley, they eloped after Percey
abandons his wife
– Strongly influenced by events of
the French Revolution
– In 1818 her book Frankenstein was published anonymously, the book was
written in a response to a dream and discussion about a ghost story contest
Mary Shelley uses contrasting elements in Frankenstein that mirror the experience of
life in Europe at her time in history: justice and injustice, light and dark, nature and
nurture…
15. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, final paragraph chapter 4
Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not
watch the blossom or the expanding leaves--sights which before always
yielded me supreme delight--so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The
leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near to a close; and
now every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my
enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one
doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade,
than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was
oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree;
the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow-creatures as if I had
been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived
that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours
would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then
drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when my
creation should be complete.
16. Romantic Era Writers
• Percy Blythe Shelley, 1792-1822
– Came from a strong conservative family, yet loved freedom
– He was bullied in school and said he “saw the petty tyranny of
schoolmasters and schoolmates as representative of man’s
inhumanity to man, and dedicated his life to a war against
injustice and oppression” (Norton)
– Published several political pamphlets in support of Ireland’s
independence, and a pamphlet “The Necessity of Atheism”,
believing that religion was an instrument of oppression
– Believed language can be used to create and protect moral and
civil law.
17. A Defense of Poetry, written by Percey Blysse Shelley in 1821
“Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen
expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our
sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy
delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in
pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is
inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in
sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.”
-Percy Blysse Shelley
18. Romantic Era Writers
• Lord Byron, 1788-1824
– Byron was a nobleman by birth, spoiled by his mother
– He was born with a foot deformity causing a limp and self-
consciousness, but he was also his own best promoter
– A “Byronic Hero” – a flawed but idealized character, who is
rebellious, avoids society, seductive, arrogant, much like
Lord Byron and the character in several of his writings
– He had trouble exercising moderation, with exercise, food,
money, and women (maybe men also)
– He was an advocate for social reform, seeing industrial
machines as producing inferior goods and taking away jobs
– A master at using metaphor, his best known work might be
Don Juan, which related to the social, ideological and
political issues of the Romantic Era
19. So We’ll Go No More Roving
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
-George Gordon, Lord Byron
20. How Do You See The Romantic Era?
• Can you see the influence of modern political
ideals, economic hardships, or war in the arts and
literature of today?
• If you were to write poetry, or fiction, what would
you write?
• We often don’t see how the bigger picture
permeates and shapes everything we do and
understand. What do you imagine our bigger to
look like? Does it look similar to that of the
Romantic Era?
21. Works Cited
Academy of American Poets. Poets.org. 2013. Electronic. 2 June 2013.
deidre Shauna Lynch, Jack Stillinger. "The Romantic Period." The Norton Anthology of English Literature.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. 1363-1884. Print.
History.com. "Industrial Revolution." 2013. History.com. Electronic. 30 May 2013.
Oosthoek, Jan. "Romantic movement, late 18th and early 19th century." 2013. Environmental History
Resources. Electronic. 2 June 2013.
The Monster. Dir. James Whale. Perf. Boris karloff. 1931. photo.
Young, Molly. "A Defence of Poetry By Percey Blysse Shelley." 13 October 2009. Poetry Foundation.
Electronic. 30 May 2013.
